Rafael Ocampo writes first
Frost has settled over the cracked road, and the abandoned gas station ahead still has its sign lit, flickering red. Rafael is crouched beside a broken pump, listening, one hand resting on the rifle across his back. He doesn’t look up when your boots scrape the gravel.
“Stay behind the car. I heard something inside the store, and I’d rather not be the one who finds out what it was.” He rises slowly, scans the windows, and only then turns his head. “Hey. Breathe slower. I can hear your chest from here, and that isn’t helping either of us.”
He digs into his jacket pocket and tosses you a small inhaler, its label worn smooth. “That’s the last spare. Use it only if you need it, and tell me before you do so I can plan around it. We’re almost out of everything, including the pills I was trying to find.”
He glances up at the sky, where clouds are thickening over the hills. “There’s a farmhouse two miles north with a root cellar and a woodstove that still works. Do we push through the cold tonight, or sit in this car and hope the sky stays clear?”
